


Way too heavy... even for a Jedi

by starbirdrampant (ineasako22)



Series: Tumblr writing prompts [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9674549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineasako22/pseuds/starbirdrampant
Summary: In hindsight, it’s fitting that Obi-wan returns to Tatooine. The ghosts are older here.A response to a prompt bysourlanderon tumblr."send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it" tumblr prompt





	

_There is no death, there is the Force._

Tell that to the younglings. Tell that to the padawans, to the knights, to the masters. Tell that to the ones who lay broken and betrayed, their breath stolen by blaster-fire; or worse, by a lightsaber.

“There is no death,” Master Yoda told him once, while Obi-wan watched his master’s body succumb to the flames, a boy standing solemnly beside him – _You thought he was the Chosen One, Master. You thought he would save us._

_Did you think it would end like this?_

He ought to take solace. The dead, after all, no longer have to suffer the turmoils of the living. Their souls have returned to the stars, and do not have to look down to see the anguish left in the wake of their passing.

_Do you see it, Anakin? Do you see what you’ve become, my brother? What you’ve left behind?_

In hindsight, it’s fitting that Obi-wan returns to Tatooine. The ghosts are older here. 

Instead of fire, he wakes from dreams of blinding sun and stinging sand and tried to remember better days.

He sometimes succeeds.

But while Tatooine may not burn, the rest of the galaxy _does_ , as the Empire makes its slow, inexorable march towards the edges of the Republic’s corpse, shedding its old skin through blaster-fire and grenades.

He hears rumors of the Rebellion from the whispers in the cantinas in Mos Eisley, from the excited murmurs of the few pilots who still return to the planet. But more often than not, he hears the few Imperial broadcasts that are far reaching enough to find even a hermit.

They paint a far darker story.

Before, Obi-wan Kenobi would have been the first to call out in outrage, the first to step up to fix the problem, to find a solution, to make things right.

Now… 

There are some things a Jedi cannot fix, some shadows that grow too dark. They reach out with long fingers that blot out the stars and crowd tight around hearts and hopes and dreams. 

Obi-wan Kenobi cannot beat the shadows back. He still watches Anakin burn on Mustafar. 

He still burns with him.

Ben is the one who is left. Ben is the one who walked away, who carried the child to his father’s homeworld, who settled down to a life diminished.

Ben listens to the Imperial broadcasts. He distantly notes what Obi-wan Kenobi would have done. And then he goes back home, carefully not looking at the box that holds Anakin’s lightsaber. He tends his bantha herd and checks on Anakin’s son and listens to the sand and the wind and refuses to think about the rest of the galaxy.

That was another life, you see, and he has a hard enough time carrying this one.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr is here.](http://starbirdrampant.tumblr.com) Come say hello!
> 
> If you would like to send in a title prompt of your own, just let me know what it's for so I don't get a random ask out of the blue!


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